I help brands and customers interact with each other through static, interactive, and human touch points. I look especially at the crossing of online - offline, focusing on what makes a customer experience shareable & remarkable.
I lead the Singapore office of Antics - Digital Creative Agency
Email me: erik@erikposthuma.com
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I like this. It's remarkable. It could have been better.
Where is the shareable component? Any remarkable event begs to be shared. Lynx could have taken all the videos, chopped it up into per interaction videos. Placed them online where the consumers who interacted with the video could share it via their social networks.
When you make something remarkable, do you make it shareable?
Call it the 105% Rule. From a word-of-mouth perspective, it's virtually impossible to discuss an experience that is 5% better than the norm on all dimensions. People don't talk like mystery shoppers, reporting diligently on each relevant feature. People talk about the exceptions, the unexpected, the highlights.
So you have just revamped your customer experience process. You took a look at your touch points and made them more fluid, you have made your communication more transparent and real. You think you've made it. In fact, mystery shopping and customer satisfaction surveys show that you have increased customer satisfaction by a whopping 5%! That's great!
But it is not.
Ok let's take the edge off this, it is actually good and kudos for getting this far. Great that your company is thinking about the customer experience and great that you have improved it.
But that is not all.
I stumbled on this quote (see above) by the guys behind "Switch" (beware, affiliate link, but it's a great book so buy it anyway!), Dan and Heath. They wrote it in 2007 and it keeps on resonating. It's about creating remark-ability, it's that one percent that makes people talk, the one that sparks conversation. So how do you spark that? Dan and Heath name a few good examples:
...consider Doubletree Hotels. In the lodging spectrum, Doubletree is a "medium"--nicer than La Quinta but not as full service as Four Seasons. It should be hard to find something to say about a medium player. And yet there's a conversation everyone has about the Doubletree: When you check in, they give you delicious, fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies. These conversations provide a concrete symbol of warmth and homey service. (We baked cookies for you!) Cost aside, Ritz-Carltons would likely outrank Doubletree hotels in every conceivable survey dimension. Except the one that creates conversation.
And.
...If you go to Portland, Oregon, everyone wants to talk about Voodoo Doughnut. They talk about the caffeinated doughnut. Or the chocolate-glazed chocolate doughnut rolled in Cocoa Puffs cereal. Or the voodoo-doll-shaped doughnut that bleeds raspberry filling when impaled with a pretzel pin. Oh, did we mention that a Voodoo founder will conduct your wedding--with doughnuts and coffee for 10--for $175?
Sy Taylor has a thought about communications which is labeled SHOQ, now I don't know the details yet but I do know it stands for Simple, Human, Open and Quirky. So look at your brand, it's communications and SHOQ it up. Make something quirky and shareable. So something unexpected.
How will you quirk up your brand? How do you make your customer experience one that is shareable and remarkable?
Customer experience management is all about creating that sharable story through your brand touchpoints. In this presentation Thierry de Baillon shares his opinion of the Social Media - Social Learning continuum.
Great set of slides, just had to share it.
Here is a tale of another retailer who took differentiation just a little further. I read of an interesting US retail growth story recently. Ice cream retailer Cold Stone Creamery has as its boss Doug Ducey. Now back in 1999, Doug made the decision to grow his ice cream business from its then 74 stores to 1000 within five years: an ambitious target. Although he already had differentiated his retail brand into a unique service offering in its product sector, he realised that he should not just be selling ice cream, but selling a memorable experience for his customers as well. The service offer at Cold Stone Creamery was that customers could create their own flavours by asking staff to create them on the spot by blending their stock flavours to order on a granite slab in front of the customer. Doug wanted to take this unique service proposition further. So he started hiring sales people who had outgoing personalities. People who could sing or dance, and engage his customers at the same time as serving them. Customers loved this extra helping of service to go with their ice cream. So much so, that they helped Doug achieve his ambitious growth target of 1000 stores within six years. Doug believes that hiring staff with the “X Factor”, allowed him to realise his business ambitions. Doug commented that: “you can have a great product and a great location but if your crew don’t leave an extraordinary impression on your customers, you’ll limit your business.”
What makes your business sharable? What makes your business outstanding? What are the touchpoints in your business that people will talk about? What is YOUR purple cow?
Good service isn't good enough, in fact GREAT service isn't good enough either. Doug realized that the only way to grow was to have remarkable service. Remarkable service is exactly that. Customer interactions that people can make remarks about, service that will spread because customers talk about it.
What do people talk about after walking into your store?
Give them something to talk about.
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